


Battle Hymn of Trees

by sprx77



Series: Hanami [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Naruto, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: "working on" ha, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Dumbass Naruto and Sasuke but nothing is new there, F/F, F/M, I'm not going to kill my children, I've been working on, M/M, Multi, Oh go d as I was putting Dai-nana-han in the characters tag just a second ago it occurred to me that, Pepper was Sakura this one time, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, The Author Regrets Nothing, The major character death is only a thing because this is a reincarnation fic, This is going to be glorious, This is not that crossover, This is something I wrote late at night instead of a research paper, an Avengers/Naruto crossover for months, probably, that hmmm who could be the Kakashi figure, upon seeing the tag "Dai-nana-han (Team 7) & Kakashi"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:31:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprx77/pseuds/sprx77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title subject to change; reference to "Freedom in the Eyes of Another."</p><p>The souls of Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto (respectively) became aware of their reincarnation cycle while they were Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto. Some of Sakura's personality and memories stick despite the cleansing between lives and lifetimes, giving Pepper a bit of a headstart with the whole ass-kicking business.</p><p>(Without this, Pepper would have kicked just as much ass as Sakura before her-- and Mito before Sakura, and so on for the entirety of her soul's existence-- but. In all those lifetimes, she wasted a ridiculous amount of time figuring out who she was and how to kick ass and, even, whose ass to kick. This way is better.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry.

In Team 7’s—the last Team 7’s, the best Team 7’s, _her_ Team 7’s—generation, they figure it out.

Well, they always _know_ —

Deep in their bones—

(Past their bones, technically)—

Beneath everything—

But not _consciously._

As Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto, they figure it _out_.

It changes things.

As souls, more emotion than thought and sentience, they’re aware of it. They enjoy the company and the knowledge and they _remember_ and remember lifetimes similar and different before the Lethe comes and the knowledge is buried, yes, but not _forgotten_.

They know in the cycle between lives.

 _Figuring it out_ during one of the lifetimes is the sudden, unexpected breakthrough that _changes things_. That changes _everything_. They didn’t even know they were waiting for it until it happened.

Each new life isn’t like the old one, except for how it _is_. The names don’t stay the same, obviously. The family, the chakra, the techniques—these things change each time. The personalities, even, the attitudes and wants and beliefs and friends and everything else that makes one life distinct from another.

Some things—the bare bones of a soul—do _not_.

The life time where they are Team 7 changes that. They achieved the knowledge in a mortal life, and they have always had the knowledge in the un-life/ever-life/lull in the life cycle; they had never done that before.

So, more than the skeleton traces of the _same soul_ that shines through in different bodies, elements of a _lifetime_ manifest in the subsequent one.

Sakura _knew_. The knowledge _followed_. Or Sakura knew to follow the knowledge, when her mortal shell fell away.

Where once a soul lingered in the afterlife, cleansed and nameless, now a name accompanied. Traces of a lifetime refused to wash off. _This_ life wasn’t any more special than the other lives.

But it was. It so completely was because _Team 7 figured it out_.

Of course, Virginia is no more Sakura than Sakura was Mito.

She’s new and different, as Sakura was new and different than her past life.

It’s just. Virginia—Pepper, damnit— _remembers_ being Sakura from the start.

It’s like picking up a song where the last line left off.

You know. Instead of _starting completely over_.

Pepper made the mistake of thinking—when she thought about it, in halting rhythms as she figured out more and more from muddled memories, learning the words to a song she half-remembered before she could play it clearly herself—that it would be as simple for her boys.

 _When did they ever make things easy for her, Jesus Christ, those morons_.

(Her boys can never, _ever_ do things simply.)

Virginia “Pepper” Potts grew up taking no shit from anyone.

She ran before she walked and when she inevitably fell she shoved herself off the ground and kept on going.

She loves her mom and dad fiercely and, though she couldn’t remember everything she learned as an adult—as Sakura—she was leaps and bounds ahead of the other children.

 _Naruto_ , she thought as a child; not so much with specific memories of his face or what he meant to her or what they went through. Just the knowledge that he was hers and the warm recollection of a warmer laugh and every room filled with love and cheerful happiness.

She could feel it on her skin. It was like the sun.

 _Sasuke_ , she thought as a child; not so much with specific memories of _his_ face or what he meant to her or what they went through. Just that knowledge that he was _hers_ and a rush of affection, the knowledge of the pseudo-reluctant return of it, of sharp, shocking amusement (but small smiles) and sharper, shockier- _ness_ filling every room, adrenaline and excitement (but gentle touches, innocent and careful).

She knows this of them with the childlike certainty that it’s true--without wondering why or thinking about it too often, if at all. It never needs be considered because there is no doubt.

The sky is blue (sometimes) and she shouldn’t talk to strangers (unless Mom or Dad is introducing her to them) and there exist feelings to go with these names she doesn’t consciously know but will remember (always).

Pepper remembers—such a nebulous term—being Sakura Haruno. But she is _not_ Sakura any more. She is Pepper and she doesn’t have the option of being a shinobi.

She, point of fact, has not dug _into_ those memories too closely, content to let the names of _everyone she has ever loved who has died and doesn’t exist anymore_ stay forgotten, dulled by the mostly thorough cleansing of the reincarnation cycle. It happened, but not to _her_.

Pepper goes to school and does _excellently_ and winds up—after a lot of years with equally as interesting and meaningful things happening, thank you very much—as Tony Stark’s personal assistant.

He reminds her so much of—someone—that it hurts in her chest at first, as tears jump to her eyes, until she _refuses_ to be overwhelmed by ghosts of a past life, covers up that vulnerability by pulling self-confidence and tartness to her voice.

“Excuse me?”

Tony is like a whirlwind. She isn’t an engineer and doesn’t try to understand the jargon. She is not walked upon. She can _manage_ him and manage the company and everyone in it.

She does.

She makes a great CEO.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BAMF!Pepper is BAMF.

One day Tony is attacked and kidnapped by terrorists in a desert.

They do not know he is kidnapped, at first; merely that there was an attack.

Pepper knows that he is not dead.

Her upbringing and who she is and what she experiences would lead to her covering her mouth with her hand and crying at the news. It is awful that this has happened to anyone, but Tony—

Tony is special to her and--

And.

She has not always been Pepper Potts.

Pepper knows that he is not dead.

(The knowledge sings in her bones, only deeper.)

He is probably hurt. It’s awful to think of Tony in the desert, probably captured—and then, confirmed captured—and it hurts her to consider.

Once upon a time she— _her_ , she is the same—could kill in ways no humans around her know about or could hope to imagine.

She had the strength of one thousand men.

More importantly, she could hold the lives of one thousand shinobi in her hands.

Pepper stands from where she is given the news and those telling her back away; they see a woman with red eyes and obvious distress pulling on some semblance of control and excusing herself to grieve in peace.

JARVIS greets her quietly when she walks into the elevator.

“I’d like the gym, please.” She says. Her voice shakes, but doesn’t falter.

She has long since grown out of being the kind of woman who does.


	3. Chapter 3

It is good that Pepper starts training so early.

When she first reaches to touch the energy within her, there is none.

It takes her several moments to remember how to reach for it.

Longer, still, to start from scratch combining her will—not negligible— with the energy she draws from her cells (meager).

When she has the chakra pool most six year olds start with, she begins re-learning how to mold it. _She_ remembers being able to do it, but her body doesn’t. It’s unfamiliar.

Until it isn’t.


	4. Chapter 4

Obadiah Stane thinks she is nervous.

He doesn’t know Pepper Potts is stealing information from right under his nose.

She is polite and blushes a little.

(Pepper is not nervous. If her hand shakes, it is with rage.

This man took someone precious to her and he was tortured.

This man did it for—not that it matters why, of course, but he did it for greed and he did it as a traitor. He raised Tony and then betrayed him utterly.

She smiles and very carefully lets none of her killing intent show. It’s a feat of chakra control that bodes well for her progress and _ill_ for his _face_.

It does _not_ take all of her control to refrain from slipping a knife between his ribs. It only takes a fraction. She is on a mission.)

Pepper completes her mission and slides past him out of the room.

(She has more important things.

Tony.)


	5. Chapter 5

Once, Tony walks her through placing a glowing blue light into his chest.

She is scared and furious.

It is one thing to keep someone alive and a wholly other to understand this blend of magic and technology. Everything she is learning about the human body is near worthless when Tony has become, as near as she can tell, part machine.

 

  
She is proud of him for saving _himself_ when he had no one.

She trusts him with this.


	6. Chapter 6

The glowing blue light was slowly poisoning Tony and Pepper did not find out about it until _afterwards_ because trusting him with his own health was _stupid_.

She makes him walk her through an explanation of his solution and cannot believe she was distracted by what had seemed like a rash of bad decisions (post-traumatic).

She had thought the crisis was over.

The crisis is _never_ going to be over because Tony finds trouble like the _supermagnet_ keeping him alive.

It feels stupidly familiar.


	7. Chapter 7

Pepper and Sakura are not quite one and the same.

Pepper is _more_ than Sakura. Pepper is Sakura-and-then-some. Sakura _plus_ the decades spent as Pepper.

“Pepper” is not necessarily more accurate—they were “Sakura” longer—but “Pepper” has recency.

It does not matter.

It does not _matter_.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony finds a way to give _himself_ super powers and she is not surprised that he has found a way to fly.

(Why?)

The way he works with maddening quick flashes of genius, jumping from one idea to the other, is comforting.

(She doesn’t know why.)

He sits down and understands casually what others take years and years to know. He laughs and listens to loud music and wears his genius like an armor (until he literally builds his own with it), his quick wit and quicker tongue keeping him ahead of anyone who would try to corner him with words or make him feel like less than he is.

It makes her smile without thinking about it, small and private.

(She doesn’t--)

He built AI’s at 17 so he wouldn’t have to be lonely.

He talks to You and Butterfingers and Dum-E like they’re people, because sentience transcends flesh, and he grins in the privacy of his workshop (because they will never hurt him, judge him, or take away their love like it’s a privilege given to him only when he obeys).

(She knows.)


	9. Chapter 9

Pepper is in shape.

She is, point of fact, in better shape than just about everyone in the country. (The world.)

She hits her former levels of control and immediately starts pushing every spare bit of chakra into a seal over her forehead without breaking her stride.

It's not enough to be good enough.

Pepper will be  _excellent_.

And then? She will be perfect.

(In this, at least. In this if nothing else, always.)

 


	10. Chapter 10

Pepper is on a plane when aliens invade Manhattan.

She punches her thigh in frustration.

She knew about the Avengers Initiative. She did _not_ guess that a day was all it took for things to go to absolute hell. She had thought Tony would keep her updated.

There was not time.

Tony goes into a hole in _space_ , because of _course_ he does, taking the nuke that would have hit New York with him—

He grabs it and she is not surprised, she is _not_ , she is so proud it hurts but not surprised at all, her idiot, her stupid, _stupid ** ~~Kage~~ —**_

But--

_Oh._

Tony falls through the portal after a scary moment when Pepper thinks she is going to have to mount an interstellar attack—her brain races ahead to how she could get through to how she could survive, who she could _force_ to open another portal, it would _fucking happen_ —and is caught by the Hulk.

Pepper throws back her head and laughs and cries because _of_ _course_.

Tony is not quite the same as Pepper, in that Pepper’s memories of being Sakura are crystal clear if she wants them to be and Tony obviously doesn’t consciously remembering being Naruto, but he is so very definitely her teammate.

(He is scary smart and quick to love, happy and smiling despite the pains of his childhood—and why? Why couldn’t Naruto have parents who loved him and raised him and sheltered him from harm _just once_ —where someone else would be screaming. He creates as easily as he destroys. He is warm. He _always makes the sacrifice play_ , putting other people before himself.)

(Even though it makes her pull her hair out.)

(She grudgingly concedes that red and gold, while garish, are leaps and bounds better alone than being combined into bright orange.)


	11. Chapter 11

Pepper found one teammate, but not the other.

She accepted this. If Sasuke were reincarnated—and he _was_ , they always came together—they just hadn’t met him yet. Nobody appeared with the requisite qualifications.

Tony was known across the world, famous in his own right. She was just as well known-- if subtler, quieter, and behind him.

He put on flying, futuristic armor and saved the world.

She was theirs, and they were hers, but Naruto and Sasuke had ever been clashing foils, if not enemies, and equally loud.

They together had balance, but Naruto and Sasuke were two sides of the same coin. She fit, she _did_ , but she was… held apart, just a little, just enough to keep them both grounded (and sane).

To be the balance of their balance—those who would quite possibly destroy the world when they met, two unstoppable forces-- she had to be an unmovable object between and around them. She had to be able to take them _both_. To stay just a tad bit removed, just enough to keep _her_ grounded (and _sane_.)

Tony and Pepper’s places were clear.

Tony didn’t have anyone to fill Sasuke’s roll.

(She considered Steve, but dismissed him almost immediately. For various reasons.)

Then she saw the video footage.


	12. Chapter 12

She got the sense of foreboding almost as soon as the video started playing.

By the time the banter ended, Pepper knew.

“Damnit, Tony!”


	13. Chapter 13

Natasha Romanoff rose an eyebrow at her when Pepper asked about Clint’s recovery from the mind control staff.

“Cognitive recalibration” sounded like pretty much the first thing she  would have tried, regardless.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper armors herself with the best she has available and Tony is not stupid enough to stand in her way.
> 
> Probably he is going to be following her around with his mouth half open and a single finger half raised, trying to speak but failing because of awe/fear for the next portion of their lives.
> 
> Or: Pepper Potts has always had the ability to punch in the gates of Asgard, they've just never given her a reason to until now. Team Seven is Team Seven no matter what names and bodies they wear, whether they remember it or not.

Pepper is all of Sakura’s politeness and bedside manner. Pepper is pantsuits and dresses and tall shoes and hair pulled back carefully, or arranged perfectly, and all of her is never even slightly disheveled.

If there was one word to describe Pepper Potts, one would be torn between using ‘competent’ or ‘professional’.

She nods decisively and smiles demurely. She walks calmly and collectedly to every destination perfectly on time. Everything she does is precise, measured, and with complete control of her body.

So when Tony walks into his modified workshop to find her there, one foot up on the bench and both hands lacing up her boots, he stops. Stares. Is everything but speechless.

“ _Aaaaaand_ I’ll have to call you back, Rhodes—no, no, it’s very important, can’t miss it, what was that? I’m going through a tunnel.” He hangs up the phone without looking away from her, eyes assessing. He squints, moves further into the room, and walks around her.

This is the curiosity that lead to countless inventions.

She glances over her shoulder at him without straightening up, smiles.

“So, Pep. You’re here. Why? Yet to be determined. No, no, I’ll figure out. Just give me… a minute…” He eyes her intently as he fiddles with half-finished robotics on the desks. “Ah! I’ve got it. Someone from HR went too far. I’ll get the suit, we’ll take him down together. No, wait, you wouldn’t be putting on Kevlar for internal relations; if you can deal with me not signing form A line seven for X amount of time, nobody else can push you to violence. I’m the epitome of procrastinating work in favor of real-work. The King, if you will.”

He popped a grape into his mouth from some stash or another.

“Oooh,” He pointed. “I know, I know exactly what this is. You’re getting back at me for something. I’ve done something wrong, I just know it. The task now is to figure it out.”

Another grape.

“I missed an anniversary of something?”

Pepper smiled in real amusement and fondness, moving from boot to thigh to fasten clever straps.

“It’s got to be something big if you’re using the under-Suit armor. I wear that under my usual suits, did you know? Suits, not Suit-Suits. And designed it, of course. The very best. I can’t think of why you’d need it but not me. Are you going somewhere dangerous? Dangerous enough that you need military-grade—

“Well, the military wishes they had prototype- _Stark_ -grade armor, actually—“

“We should really get on that, where’s my copyright team? I’ll make a note. ‘Military-grade’ just won’t do as a term anymore. Mm, not really the top-ranked in the hierarchy of quality anymore. What do you think, Pep, Stark-grade? We should coin it. I’m coining it.”

He tapped away lightning-quick on the tablet in his hands.

“Coined.”

Pepper straightened, drug her hair up into a high, tight, efficient tail. For a moment, her forehead felt empty. Her smile turned a bit wry, then fell as she focused.

“We’re going to Asgard.” She said succinctly.

“Right, of course, Asgard. I’ll get the Suit— _wait._ ” She watched him ramble before visually registering what she said. It’s hard to maintain anything but a grin whenever he’s so ready to get her wherever she wants to go, no questions asked.

His loyalty is a powerful thing.

Electric blue eyes regarded her cautiously and curiously, up and down. She was indeed dressed in the long sleeved, knife and bullet and fire proof polymer. It was a bodysuit that hugged her curves from throat to wrists to ankle. Over it at the feet, the ultra-light weight and nigh indestructible combat boots.

Over her torso, a thick black vest. Pads and plates blended near-seamlessly with the mesh. It resembled a familiar suit of armor with every dimension reduced for flexibility. Made of the not-plastic he’d invented they slid under each other like scales. It weighed next-to-nothing and restricted her movements even less.

Still, she took the time to test her movements carefully. The slightest change to her reach or balance could be disastrous when fighting against gods and immortals.

Strapped to her thighs and the various, interlocking defenses, an array of combat knives weighted for throwing. This particular set was obviously for Natasha because the balance was perfect. She didn’t recognize the alloy of the metal.

While Tony was actually struck speechless, she moved each limb a little, testing the new attire and how it moved with her. The gloves were Natasha’s as well, she thought, as she pulled them on. They were almost leather, soft to the touch. No doubt she’d have to use a chakra scalpel to cut through whatever special synthesized molecule thing it was actually made out of.

The plates, silver and gleaming on the knuckles, were probably meant to be painted later. That was alright. She’d take them as-is.

Pepper pulled a little on the edge of the second glove and tightened her fist, memorizing the feel. It was a familiar pose.

Privately, she wanted to fly through the air and punch something or someone hard enough to make mountains on the other side of the globe—whichever globe she happened to be on—sit up and take notice.

Her muscles were carefully relaxed but wanted to tense up with manic energy. She was so beyond ready to see some action. If it was in defense of one of her boys, then, well, all the better.

It would hardly be the first time Sasuke was internationally-wanted and stuck in a jail cell by the people he’d managed to betray.

Perhaps they deserved it this go-around, as well. 

Pepper, unlike Sakura, grew up with an average knowledge of the cultures and myths and religions across the world. History and literature classes in college supplied the basics. Knowing her most important person was on a team of super powered monsters, aliens, and spies was enough to prompt her to learn the rest re: Norse legends.

Thor and Loki existed. Thor called down thunder and wielded a magic hammer. Sasuke was Loki and the thought of _any_ of those myths being true—Tony’s files said he was really an ice giant instead of Aesir, so the familial lies and judgement were likely, at the very least—made her spitting mad.

(A small part of her was scared, horrified for him, true, but most of it was overshadowed by a far-reaching and blazing fury.)

Beyond that, the creeping suspicion that she’d garnered as she went over _literally every available scrap of information_ from SHIELD, Tony, and JARVIS made her want to retch a little.

Her horror and rage had given way—more overflowed _into_ —a simmering, righteous fire of wrath and determination.

She’s not a scared-little girl anymore. Hasn’t been for a while now, actually.

Tony picked his jaw up off the ground, moved it a little while obviously trying and failing to come up with anything to say—index finger curling and uncurling as he started to make a definite point and decided against it last second—and finally clamped his mouth shut.

“Okay.” He said.

“Okay?” She questioned, faintly incredulous.

“I’ll get the suit.” He repeated and walked off with a _purpose_. There was the quality to his steps that spoke of action and agency. Most everyone in the building would recognize the determined glint in his eyes and move the hell out of the way.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to go through the building.

The suits were right there.

Tony brushed hands over the pieces of armor at one of the work stations and they sprang to life, even as he looked up and met her gaze. The Mark IX, newly built, flew piece by piece—nearly smacking him a few times, but his eyes didn’t leave hers until they glowed white-blue through a metal mask.

“Let’s do it.”

She grinned, fierce and so _ready_.

All of the Avengers had their own floor in the tower. Tony followed her into the elevator and she put in the code for Thor’s.

Team Seven belonged _together_.


End file.
